UN rights chief warns Lanka

Friday, 01 July 2011

The UN's human rights chief Thursday warned Sri Lanka not to take too long in probing war crimes allegations, saying failure to carry out a credible inquiry could lead to international action.

"There is now a high level of expectations expressed by member states that Sri Lanka should seriously inquire into these allegations" of prisoner executions and assaults, said Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"But this should not be an open-ended process," she stressed, noting that a previous Sri Lankan internal inquiry "failed to complete its task, never published its report and never led to a single prosecution."

"If that should be the case again, there is an intention for the international community to take further action. I certainly believe that the Human Rights Council should actively consider this matter," said Pillay.

Pressure has mounted on Colombo since Britain's Channel 4 broadcast a documentary that showed what it said were prisoner executions and bodies of female Tamil fighters who appeared to have been sexually assaulted.

A recent UN report accused government forces of war crimes, alleging that they executed rebel leaders who had surrendered.

An estimated 100,000 people were killed in the nearly four-decade-long Tamil separatist conflict, which began in 1972.

Pillay's remarks echoed that of the United States, which on Tuesday urged Sri Lanka to move quickly to address allegations of war crimes.

Colombo has questioned the authenticity of the Channel 4 footage but said that a local panel, known as the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, would take action if the allegations are proven. (AFP)
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IBAHRI expresses regret at Bar Association of Sri Lanka’s unreserved condemnation of appointment of UN Panel on Accountability

27/06/2011
The International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) is disappointed by the recent Resolution of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) condemning both the appointment of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka, and its subsequent report.
The UN Panel of Experts was appointed to advise the United Nations Secretary-General on issues of accountability with regard to international humanitarian and human rights law violations allegedly committed by both the Government of Sri Lanka and the insurgent Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the final stages of the internal armed conflict in Sri Lanka. Nevertheless, the BASL ‘denounces the findings and recommendations’ of the Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka and ‘calls upon the Secretary-General of the United Nations to refrain from taking any action aimed at directly or otherwise implementing the recommendations of the said Panel of Experts.’
The establishment of an independent commission of inquiry into alleged war crimes and human rights violations is one of the recommendations to which the BASL objects.       Full Story>>>